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Go, Speed Racer, Go!

In 2000 after he won Canadian nationals in slalom, Dr. Michael Tichy moved to Oregon from Vancouver, British Columbia, where he and his siblings had grown up — and enjoyed a great deal of success on the slopes.

“We are a family of racers,” says Dr. Michael Tichy of his siblings and parents, and he means it: His father, a college athlete and ski instructor who escaped communist Czechoslovakia in 1980 and immigrated to western Canada, imbued the love of the sport in his children. Dr. Tichy’s older brother was a U.S. champion in 1997; his older sister raced for team Canada in the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan; and Dr. Tichy won Canadian nationals in slalom in 2000.

In 2006, Dr. Tichy decided to “semi-retire”: “I’d still go to races to get paid. It was decent income for the winter months. I’d do summer-ski race camps, three months of coaching.” But by 2009, he had entered school, and classes were taking precedence. “I decided to hang up the boots and devote myself to studying.”

He graduated with his DMD from Oregon Health & Science University, and since June 2016 has worked in Salem for Dr. Gregory Dilger—whom he met two decades ago when Dr. Dilger signed up for one of his ski classes.

Dr. Tichy no longer races professionally—“once you get out, it’s hard to compete at a lower level and take it seriously,” he says—but his love for the sport has been renewed by his two young daughters. His family, too, still runs camps around the world through their company, Tichy Racing (tichyracing.com).